"Huh? Didn't Lao Meng and the others mention it yesterday?" Village Chief Li asked curiously.
Lu Yanzheng shook his head, "No, they only talked about Qinggang Mountain, and there were some other things as well."
“They must have forgotten. After all, we’ve gotten used to it over the past few months,” Village Chief Li immediately understood.
Upon hearing this, Lu Yanzheng could understand. Yesterday, he had been leading everyone to talk about the grain robbery at Qinggang Mountain, so it was reasonable that they couldn't think of anything else at the moment.
“Uncle Village Chief, uncles and elders,” Lu Yanzheng stood up and bowed to everyone, “Thank you all for taking care of my parents during the years I was away.”
After he finished speaking, he bowed to the crowd.
Village Chief Li and the others quickly dispersed, waving their hands repeatedly and saying they didn't deserve such praise.
"Ah Zheng, you are now the Great General Protecting the Nation, how can you bow so respectfully to us? You mustn't, you mustn't!" Village Chief Li patted his chest, his heart pounding in his chest.
Upon hearing this, Old Man Lu asked, puzzled, "What, the Great General Who Protects the Nation?"
"Old Lu, don't you know?" Village Chief Li looked at him in shock. "A-Zheng is now the Grand General Protector of the Nation, personally appointed by the Emperor!"
Old Man Lu: "..."
Chen and Jiang Qinyu, who had just come out of the kitchen: "..."
The Great General Who Protects the Nation?
Jiang Qinyu was a little confused. Had Lu Yanzheng's status risen so quickly? With such a prestigious title, how many soldiers must he command?
"Ah Zheng, why didn't you say so before?" Old Lu came back to his senses, looking at him with a mixture of sadness and relief.
Lu Yanzheng said indifferently, "It's just an empty title, nothing to say about it."
“How can this be an empty title?” Chen said, displeased. “No matter what, you earned it on the battlefield.”
“Yes, Ah Zheng, don’t be so modest,” Village Chief Li said. “Now you are the most promising person in our village. I’m thinking of opening the ancestral hall tonight and offering incense to our ancestors!”
Lu Yanzheng immediately spoke up to stop them, "There's no need to make such a fuss. Thank you for your kindness, Uncle Village Chief."
He wasn't being modest; the title was indeed just an empty name, sounding nice but offering no real benefits.
Village Chief Li tried to persuade him a few more times, but Lu Yanzheng refused, so they had no choice but to give up.
"Uncle Village Chief, I'd like to explore the village. Is that alright?" Lu Yanzheng asked politely.
Village Chief Li laughed and said, "What's inconvenient about that? You're from our village too! Come on, Uncle will take you there!"
As he spoke, he turned to leave, but when he saw Jiang Qinyu, his eyes lit up. "My dear niece, you're coming too!"
Jiang Qinyu smiled somewhat reluctantly, "Uncle Village Chief, I have some things to take care of at home, so I won't go."
Just kidding, Lu Yanzheng doesn't look like someone who can be easily fooled, so she'd better stay away from him.
What's more, she has a ticking time bomb in her hands, and she needs to deal with it quickly while Lu Yanzheng is not around.
Lu Yanzheng glanced at Jiang Qinyu, said nothing, and followed Village Chief Li out the door.
As Chen watched the others walk away, tears suddenly streamed down her face. "Our Zheng has made something of himself, he's really made something of himself..."
"Mother, this is a good thing for Zheng-ge. Please stop crying, so that Zheng-ge won't feel bad if he sees it," Jiang Qinyu comforted her, patting her back.
Chen wiped away her tears. "Yes, this is a good thing. I should laugh. I should have a good laugh."
But then she started crying again while laughing, "Ah Zheng really had it so tough... Back then, he... Waaah..."
Chen's words were unclear, and Jiang Qinyu didn't understand them. She only thought that she was lamenting how difficult it had been to raise Lu Yanzheng over the years.
After calming Chen down, Jiang Qinyu handed the two children over to her, saying, "Mother, I'm going to take a walk in the fields. I'll come back to pick them up later."
Madam Chen had already composed herself and wiped her eyes, saying, "Go ahead, go ahead. I'll keep an eye on them, don't worry."
Jiang Qinyu then went out the door.
She came out of the village, walked through a field, put on a mask and sunglasses as she went, put on a motorcycle helmet, and then casually put on a large black down jacket.
Soon, unless one spoke to Jiang Qinyu up close, no one could help but wonder who this strangely dressed person was.
Once they reached the road leading out of the village, with no one around, Jiang Qinyu took out the off-road motorcycle on display on the first floor, straddled the seat, and sped off!
Yongshan County was very cold during the Spring Festival, and Jiang Qinyu, riding her off-road motorcycle, was even colder. But apart from cursing One-Eyed King and Zhu Youcai a thousand times in her heart, she could only resign herself to her fate and head to her destination.
As early as that night, when she and Meng Tianze and others went up Qinggang Mountain to scout the way, they discovered a group of karst caves halfway up the mountain.
At the time, Meng Tianze also told them not to go to that area in the future, because they might encounter some large wild animals.
Jiang Qinyu unknowingly took 10,000 shi of military rations. If she doesn't return them, she probably won't have peace of mind for the rest of her life.
Besides, she already felt bad knowing that Dingshui Village would be constantly harassed by One-Eyed King and his gang because she had taken the 10,000 shi of military rations and pay. Now that she knew it was military pay, she was even less likely to keep it.
In this weather and at this time of day, there were almost no people on the road, and the off-road motorcycles were going very fast. Even if someone saw them, they wouldn't know what they were, let alone be able to catch up. Naturally, Jiang Qinyu rode even more boldly.
Fifteen minutes later, Jiang Qinyu arrived at the foot of Qinggang Mountain.
It wasn't safe to ride a motorcycle up the mountain, so Jiang Qinyu put away her off-road motorcycle and walked up.
Qinggang Mountain is not high, and the terrain halfway up the mountain is relatively gentle. After another fifteen minutes, Jiang Qinyu arrived at the natural karst cave complex.
That night, Qin Shen interrogated the surviving bandits and learned that all the bandits recruited by One-Eyed King had gone to Dingshui Village, so there was definitely no one on the mountain at this moment.
Jiang Qinyu didn't care about anything else. She climbed up and down the caves, panting, and it took her half an hour to hide the 10,000 shi of grain in different caves.
She stood at the bottom of the cave and looked up to make sure she wouldn't be able to see anything unless she went in before leaving.
Returning the way she came, Jiang Qinyu removed her disguise and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Now all she had to do was lead Lu Yanzheng and his men to search for grain in Qinggang Mountain; the rest was none of her business.
Meanwhile, Lu Yanzheng looked at the lush green crops in the fields and the shallow layer of clean water in the irrigation ditch, and felt that Dingshui Village was different everywhere.
Others may not know, but he has many sources of information. The current situation in Da Yue is that it is suffering from drought and many prefectures are about to collapse. People are flocking to Jiangnan.
However, the Grand Canal in Jiangnan was shut down last year, and the Yue River, known as the mother river of Da Yue, has shrunk by two-thirds. Apart from the three prefectures through which the Grand Canal and the Yue River flow, where people can still grow grain, almost all other prefectures this year only have 30% of the harvest of previous years.
In particular, the autumn harvest in Yukang Prefecture was only one-tenth of what it used to be.
However, surprisingly, Dingshui Village has water and can still be used for farming!
This is all too unusual...
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